Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla has stopped production on their already delayed Model 3 sedan and has replaced their automated production robots with human workers. Despite the long waiting list of customers and a host of other delays, Tesla has stopped production on the company’s Model 3 sedan according to the Verge. Tesla has claimed that this sudden halt in production is in fact to fix some of the issues that have caused many delays so far, one of which may be the companies decision to automate the final process of Model 3 production using robotic machinery. These machines have reportedly been replaced with human workers: In an interview with CBS, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that automation had caused some of the production delays that the Model 3 has faced over recent months, saying, “Yes, they did….We had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts….And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.” Model 3 production is set to be halted for 4 or 5 days at Tesla’s Fremont, California assembly plant. A Tesla spokesperson told The Verge, “Our Model 3 production plan includes periods of planned downtime in both Fremont and Gigafactory 1. These periods are used to improve automation and systematically address bottlenecks in order to increase production rates. This is not unusual and is in fact common in production ramps like this.” Tesla has continued to fall short of expected production numbers, reaching a production rate of 2,000 Model 3’s per week in… [Read full story]